


things you said (or, a stained-glass variation of the truth)

by blueshirt



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-08-08 07:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7747774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueshirt/pseuds/blueshirt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a place to put any tumblr prompts/drabbles/one-shots. Chapter 4:<br/><br/>5. things you didn't say at all</p>
<p>After the BONCAs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an anon who requested 13, 16, and 19 from the [things you said](http://blue-sweatshirts.tumblr.com/post/148610596273/send-me-a-ship-and-one-of-these-and-ill-write-a) prompts list :)  
> (My bad, anon, because this is a super liberal interpretation of those prompts)  
> Idk I'm just putting it up here because I feel like tumblr is very transient and ephemeral and I like to know that my work is archived somewhere lmao also i'm about to start school again so nobody get your hopes up that more things will be posted in the near future :/  
> Things you said:  
> 13\. at the kitchen table  
> 16\. with no space in between us  
> 19\. when we were the happiest we ever were  
> (Or, the one where Phil promises not to fall in love with Dan and inevitably regrets it.)

“Promise that you won’t fall in love with me,” Dan says one night when they are young and drunk and sprawled together on somebody’s couch in Manchester after Dan’s end-of-term uni exams.

Half of his hair is sticking straight up and there is a curious green stain just under his collar that Phil suspects is courtesy of the lime-flavored vodka that is being passed around the party. His expression is so utterly serious that Phil can’t help bursting into laughter.

“Never fear, my dear Ms. Bennet,” Phil snorts into his gin and tonic. “I’ll make sure your virtue stays intact when we’re flatmates next year.”

“I’m serious, Phil,” Dan says, kicking at Phil’s ankle with his toes. He scowls darkly, but his eyes are puffy from exam-induced sleep deprivation, so it just makes him look like a rumpled kitten instead of an angry adult. “If we’re going to be living together, I want to make sure our friendship doesn’t get fucked up or weird, or whatever. In my experience, sharing a living space with someone either makes you like them a whole lot more or a whole lot less, and I—”

His cheeks go pink.

“You know that I’ve never really had a best friend before,” he continues quietly, staring into his jack and coke like it is the most fascinating thing he’s ever encountered. “I just don’t want to ruin that, I guess.” He shrugs, and the line of his shoulders is oddly vulnerable.

Phil suddenly feels bad for laughing. “Don’t worry so much,” he reassures, digging a friendly elbow into Dan’s side. “I’m not looking for a relationship with anyone, much less with my best friend. I promise.” After all, Phil is barely twenty-three—way too young to be thinking about crazy, permanent things like _love_ and _marriage.  
_

 Dan tilts his head. The worried crinkle in between his eyebrows doesn’t go away, but he relaxes further into the couch, smiling a bit at Phil’s use of the term ‘best friend,’ just like Phil had known he would.

And that’s the last time they ever talk about it.

Because, after all, there’s nothing _to_ talk about. No matter how much time they spend together, Phil isn’t going to fall in love with his someone who is simultaneously his best friend, his YouTube business partner, and his flatmate—period, full stop, closed book, end of story. He had _promised,_ after all, and it would be boringly predictable and embarrassingly cliché and just plain _stupid_ to break that promise _,_ right?

 

Right?

 

Of course, Phil makes this promise before he actually _lives_ with Dan. Before he learns, across years of sleepy mornings and rainy afternoons and quiet moments stolen in the dark, exactly how Dan prefers to take his tea (two sugars and three quick splashes of cream). Before he comes to know that Dan sometimes sleep-talks in Latin because of all the research he has done on Ancient Rome to improve his _Age of Empires_ gameplay. Before he has noticed the intriguing row of freckles that runs along the left side of Dan’s ribcage; before he has stared into Dan’s eyes enough times to be able to instantly pick out the precise shade of the mahogany wood that his granddad had taught him to carve the summer after he turned eight.

So really, it’s not Phil’s fault that after a while he…that at some point over the years he begins to feel an emotion that—well, that is to say that it _could_ somewhat resemble—completely hypothetically, of course—

It’s just that Dan is so…he’s _so_ …and the happy wrinkles by his eyes when he smiles—and the way he bites his lower lip when he’s concentrating, and—and—

 

13\. Phil isn’t sure who is more shocked the first time it slips out, himself or Dan.

He is simultaneously trying to tie his shoe, find his Oyster card, eat a bagel, and look up directions to the optometrist’s office when Dan enters the kitchen.

He takes one look at Phil, and immediately jumps into action. As though it is some kind of effortless Olympic routine mastered over years and years of careful practice, Dan deftly wraps the bagel up in a napkin, unzips the outer pocket of Phil’s jacket and pulls out the missing Oyster card, and types the address into Phil’s maps app in one fell swoop.

“These might help too,” Dan says, carefully holding out Phil’s glasses. “Oh, and here’s a coffee. I turned the pot on when you were in the shower.”

He’s already poured it into a to-go cup for Phil.

Phil blinks at the beautiful, glorious, magical caffeine source in Dan’s outstretched hand. “Oh my god,” is all that he can think to say. “I love you so much.”

Dan’s ears instantly go pink, and Phil’s mind whites out for several panicked seconds.

“Um,” he says, carefully avoiding Dan’s eyes. “Yeah. So. Thanks for the coffee, er, dude. Bro.” He tries to fist-bump Dan and pat him on the head at the same time, and he ends up just sort of lightly punching Dan’s ear instead. Then he books it out of the flat before he can accidentally propose that they adopt a child together or something.

_Solid recovery, Phil,_ he groans internally as he sprints to the Tube station.

What a weird morning.

 

“Can you pass the salt?” Phil asks later that night when he and Dan are eating dinner at the kitchen table.

Dan stares thoughtfully off into the middle distance instead of passing the salt. It’s the same look he gets when he’s contemplating death and the meaninglessness of the universe, and Phil sighs and resigns himself to eating completely flavorless mashed potatoes.

“You know,” Dan remarks after a moment. “I did that once in primary school. Zoned out and called my teacher ‘Mum.’ Everyone made fun of me for ages.” He shrugs. “It happens.”

“Right,” Phil says, because Dan’s explanation makes perfect sense. He hadn’t actually _meant_ what he’d said that morning, of course, he’d just—just zoned out.

It happens.

 

19\. Phil feels like his chest might burst with a heady combination of joy and pride when he steps off-stage after their first ever TATINOF show. His face feels frozen in a smile, and next to him, Dan is practically dancing with perfect, utter happiness as he stands in the wings and listens to the animated chatter of the audience.

“We did it!” He whoops as they walk back to the dressing rooms, clapping Phil on the shoulder repetitively, as though he can’t keep all his excitement contained in his body. “Holy shit, Phil, we _actually_ did it! And people laughed and clapped, and nobody demanded their money back or threw things at us or booed us or anything.”

“See, I told you there was nothing to be worried about,” Phil grins, even though he’s the one who’d been close to puking with nervousness before they went on stage just two hours ago. “I knew the fans would love you as much as I do.”

Dan blinks owlishly at him, hand frozen on the doorknob to their dressing room, mouth slightly ajar with surprise.

“Out there on stage!” Phil adds hastily. “Because you’re such a good performer.”

Dan’s hand falls away from the doorknob. “Thanks,” he says slowly.

Phil shrugs, trying to seem nonchalant about his slip of the tongue. He reaches for the door, because stage make-up is actually kind of heavy and itchy after awhile, and it’ll be really embarrassing if his skin starts breaking out at age 28—

Dan’s fingers close around his sleeve before he can get to the door.

“Phil,” he says quietly; almost shyly, his gaze focused somewhere on Phil’s shoulder. “Do you really mean that?”

Phil is suddenly reminded of Dan’s childhood background in theater; of his early dreams of being an actor and performer; dreams that he’d given up in favor of YouTube.

“Of course I mean it,” Phil says. “You were—out there, you were really—”

_Beautiful_ is the word that pops into Phil’s head first. He thinks of how Dan’s eyes had met his from across the stage at one point; how the hot glow of stage lights had made him look ethereal, like he was _more_ than just a random guy from Wokingham; more than a famous YouTuber; more than danisnotonfire.

How Phil had been achingly proud, in that instant, to be a part of Dan’s life.

“Well,” he concludes inadequately. It must look odd, the two of them hovering together in the hallway outside the dressing room. “I’m not a bad performer, Dan. But you’re—you’re really good.”

He is struck by the sudden desire to step further into Dan’s space, to press in a little closer and just—well, he doesn’t know quite what he wants to do. Before he has the chance to sort the odd urge out, Dan pushes open the door and steps inside the dressing room and away from Phil.

 

16\. It feels surreal to be home.                

Phil has been envisioning it for three months, ever since they’d gone on the road for the US TATINOF tour in the first place. But now that the moment has actually arrived—now that he’s finally almost back in his own flat, about to be surrounded by his own houseplants and drinking his own tea—he mostly just wants to sleep.               

Dan whistles jauntily as he follows Phil up the stairs to their landing, loudly banging his suitcase against each step.                     

“Shh,” Phil mumbles, leaning against the wall next to their front door, eyes closed. “’M sleeping.”

“I feel like Odysseus, finally returning to Ithaca twenty years after the Trojan War,” Dan says, his tone magnanimous as he jangles the keys to the front door. Phil doesn’t need to open his eyes to know that Dan is standing in the doorway with a faraway look in his eyes and a contemplative expression on his face, because Dan has an unfortunate tendency to be even more self-reflective and waffle-y than usual when he’s sleep-deprived. “Like the end scene of Homeward Bound when all three of the animals finally make it back to the ranch—”

“That’s the wrong flat,” Phil points out loudly, because Dan is, in fact, trying all of their keys on their elderly neighbor’s front door and not their own; loudly rattling Mrs. Deere’s doorknob in the process.

“Oh.” Dan blinks a few times. If Phil recalls correctly, Dan had drunk four coffees towards the end of their twelve hour flight from LA. “Well, she probably doesn’t have her hearing aids in right now. So I’m sure it’s fine.”

“If the police show up asking about intruders, I’m pointing them right in your direction,” Phil says, plucking the keys from Dan’s hand and concisely unlocking their actual front door.

“Nobody had better show up asking about _anything_ for the next few weeks, unless it’s the pizza delivery guy,” Dan grumbles, hefting his bag over his shoulder. “I’m serious; I’m going into hibernation mode. Tour was awesome, but next time let’s do it on Skype or something, instead of driving halfway across the same bloody continent every other day.”

“Those are called ‘liveshows’, and we already do them once a week,” Phil says dryly, but he pauses before following Dan over the threshold. “It was pretty great, though, wasn’t it?”                

Dan turns back to look at him, and Phil wonders if he is also thinking about all the places they’ve been and all the fans they’ve met over the past three months on the road.                

“Yeah,” Dan says. The flat smells like vanilla candles and the same laundry soap that they’ve been using since the Manchester days. “Yeah, it was pretty great.”

 

They both crash immediately after that, and _holy god,_ Phil had forgotten how much he loves his bed, with its well-worn mattress and fluffy pillows and fluffy hair against Phil’s neck and—

_Wait._

“Dan,” Phil mumbles, still half-asleep. “Why’re you in my bed?”

Next to him, Dan jerks and startles awake.

“Where am I?” He gasps, sitting bolt upright.

“Calm down, Usain Bolt, you’re in our flat,” Phil mutters, pressing his face back into his pillow.

“Oh,” Dan says, sounding disoriented. “I got up to use the loo, I think, and I must’ve wandered back to the wrong room.”

“Cool. Great. Let’s go back to sleep now,” Phil slurs, waving a hand around until it makes contact with Dan’s arm. He tugs until Dan lays back down.

“I should just go back to my own room,” Dan rasps. “I think I might be getting sick, and I don’t want you to get sick too—”

“Shut up,” Phil mumbles sleepily, looping an arm around Dan’s waist and shifting closer so that there is no more space in between them, because Dan is warm and he smells nice and he makes a surprisingly good body pillow. “G’night,” he sighs, his lips pressed against Dan’s forehead. “Love you.”

He feels Dan stiffen next to him, but he is already peacefully asleep before he can process the thought.

 

Phil is pretty freaked out by the next evening, however, because he’d woken up that morning with an empty bed and a best friend who isn’t talking to him and a vague memory of kissing said best friend’s forehead and professing his love in a middle-of-the-night, jetlag-induced fugue state.

Which is apparently something he’s been subconsciously wanting to do for awhile. The whole profession-of-love thing, that is.

Christ, what a mess.

“Dan,” he says tentatively after dinner. “Do you have a minute to talk?”

“No, sorry,” Dan says, not looking up from his DS. He’s been playing all afternoon, studiously avoiding Phil’s attempts to engage him in conversation. “I don’t really have anything to say.”

Phil’s heart sinks.

“In case you were wondering after all the times I’ve accidentally said it,” Phil says, quiet but firm, standing at the edge of the lounge. “I broke my promise; the one that I made ages and ages ago. I’m in love with you.”

There. Now he’s intentionally said it, even if it’s only once. Even if Dan doesn’t feel the same way. Even if he _never_ feels the same way.

He turns away and leaves before he has to see if Dan is angry. Or even worse, if Dan just doesn’t care at all.

 

Late that night, he hears the door to his bedroom creak open.

“Dan?” He yawns curiously.

Dan’s familiar shadow pads quietly across the room. Dan hesitates for a second by the edge of the bed, and then in one smooth motion, he pulls the covers back and slides in, curling up close to Phil and tugging Phil’s arm over his waist so that they are in the exact same position they’d been in the night before.

“Dan?” Phil repeats, already relaxing back into sleep. “What—”

“I broke that promise too, for the record,” Dan murmurs.  He sounds like he’s smiling, and his lips are soft against Phil’s cheek as he speaks. “A long time ago. Anyway, g’night. Love you too. Obviously.”

 

Somewhere out there, there is a universe where Phil manages to keep the promise he made all those years ago. Where he recognizes all the warning signs of falling in love with Dan Howell, and he packs away his feelings and cuts them out at the root before they can grow.

This is not that universe, however.

Here, his love for Dan is like a garden. Thick and healthy—a little untended, unacknowledged and dormant for years and years, but still growing, growing, _always_ _growing._

Dan is still there in bed in the morning when Phil wakes up, and his smile is just so—and the little crinkles around his eyes are _still—  
_

And Phil is in love with him, and he can admit that now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things you said:  
> 8\. when you were crying  
> 11\. when you were drunk  
> 14\. when you kissed me
> 
> This was written per the request of @the-amazing-url-is-not-on-fire :))) hope you enjoy it! It accidentally became a uni/coffee shop AU? Idek ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

“Your boyfriend is late today,” Louise remarks innocently as she comes behind the counter to change the coffee filter. 

“ _Boyfriend?_ ” Phil sputters, blinking and looking away from the clock. “ _Boyfr—_ I don’t _have_ a boyfriend, Louise. You know that.”

Louise’s smile is just a touch too knowing and smug for Phil’s liking. She’s the owner and manager of _Sprinkle of Caffeine,_ which technically makes her Phil’s boss. But most days, she just feels like something of an older sister to him.

Albeit an annoying, meddlesome older sister.

“Oh, really? You don’t know who I’m talking about?” Louise continues, tone innocuous. She holds her hand way over her head. “About yea high? Big brown eyes? First-year law student? Answers to the name ‘Dan’?”

“Louise!” Phil hisses, glancing back between the door and the clock. “Keep your voice down. You _know_ Dan’s not my boyfriend. He’s—he’s not even my _friend._ He’s just a regular customer who I’ve…happened to get to know over the course of the school year.”

“Fine. Maybe he’s not your boyfriend, then, but you _wish_ he was. No, no—don’t even bother protesting,” she laughs, holding up a hand when Phil opens his mouth to argue. “I’ve watched you stand here for the past twenty minutes and wash the same plate five times in a row while you’ve been watching the clock and waiting for him.”

“Just because I like to make sure the plates are thoroughly cleaned—”

“Oh, right, of course. And I’m sure you just _happen_ to make sure a batch of gingersnaps is fresh out of the oven every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10:30, right? It has nothing to do with the fact that gingersnaps are Dan’s favorite kind of cookie, and he has a class that ends at 10:30 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays?” Louise grins, hands on her hips.

“It’s good business, Louise,” Phil says defensively, crossing his arms over his chest. “He buys them every time he comes in after class, so I make sure we have them available. Basic supply and demand, is all. And what’s with the Spanish Inquisition?”

To her credit, Louise appears slightly chagrined. “Nothing,” she sighs. “I’m sorry, Phil, it’s just—I want you to be happy. I’ve watched you moon over him for _months._ Why don’t you just ask him out, already?”

“He has a boyfriend,” Phil mumbles. He reflexively glances at the clock again. _10:54._ Dan has never been this late before. Not that Phil, like…keeps track or anything. Because that would just be creepy, of course. He’s merely happened to notice what time Dan usually comes in after his class, which is perfectly normal for such a small coffee shop—

“I’m sorry, Phil,” Louise says quietly, her face genuinely sympathetic. “I didn’t know. Look, I’m sure he’ll show up any minute. I’ll man the counter for a little bit—why don’t you take out the trash, and then you can go…fix your fringe or stare wistfully at your reflection or do whatever it is you do to get ready to see him?”

“I don’t do _any_ of those things!” Phil exclaims so loudly that several customers look up from their newspapers and laptops and coffee. He takes off his apron and nervously pats down his fringe.

“Me thinketh the grad student doth protesteth too much,” Louise sing-songs as Phil grabs the trash bag and ties it shut.

“What?” She calls after him when he glares at her. “I thought you’d like that reference—you did your undergraduate coursework in English, right?”

He can still hear her laughter when he flips his middle finger in her direction and marches out to the back alley.

 

 8. He is still muttering darkly to himself about Louise and her stupid assumptions as he opens the dumpster and tosses the trash inside—

“Of all the ridiculous—I don’t _moon_ over anybody—let alone over _him—”_

—when his foot makes contact with something that is soft and warm and very much _alive._

He flails and lets out a very manly shriek as he trips and goes sprawling over the lap of _—_

“Dan!” He gasps, very quickly removing his body from on top of Dan’s before he can start thinking too much about how nice the position feels. “Jesus _Christ,_ you scared the shit out of me! Y’know, if somebody was sitting at your usual table, you could’ve just asked me to find you another chair instead of planting yourself out here—”

The words die in his throat when he gets a better look at Dan’s face.

“Shit,” he says, plopping himself on the stoop next to Dan. “Hey, are you okay?”

Dan sniffs and hastily swipes a hand over his eyes, which are unmistakably red and puffy and damp.

“Yeah,” Dan croaks. “Totally fine. I’m just—you know, my sinuses are really affected by the, uh…the city smog. Urban pollution—huge problem, you know? Somebody needs to fix that.”

Which is probably about as convincing and believable as Phil had sounded when he was sixteen and he’d had to explain to his mum that no, of _course_ he hadn’t had a party while she and Dad were out of town…the broken bottles and smashed vase were clearly just from an enthusiastic…revision session that he and his friends had had.

He doesn’t push Dan, however. “You’re right,” he says seriously. “That type of environmental research is totally underfunded.” He pauses. “You wanna talk about it?”

“What?” Dan says sharply, eyes coming up to meet Phil’s. Phil distractedly notes how long Dan’s eyelashes are up close like this. “Oh, you mean…about the smog? No, I think I just…need a minute.” He bites his lower lip and blinks rapidly, looking away again.

“Okay,” Phil says. “Take all the minutes you need. I’m going to go grab some tissues. Be right back.”

“Jeremy and I broke up,” Dan admits before Phil can leave, kicking at a rock near his right foot. Something horribly light and hopeful swoops through Phil’s chest, and he quickly quashes the emotion, instantly disgusted with himself for being happy when Dan is so clearly upset and hurt.

“Or rather,” Dan continues, laughing bitterly. “ _I_ broke up with him when I found out he was cheating on me with some prick from the rugby club.”

“Shit, Dan,” Phil exhales, sinking back down to sit next to Dan. He hadn’t met Jeremy more than a handful of times—his class schedule was completely different from Dan’s, so he rarely came to _Sprinkle of Caffeine_ —but Phil had never liked the guy. “You want me to kick his ass?”

Dan laughs—a real laugh, sounding much more like his usual self. Phil counts it as a win, even though he’d actually meant the offer seriously.

“No, nobody needs to beat him up. I don’t even care, really. Things weren’t going very well between us for the past month or two, and I guess I know now that it’s just because he’s actually a raging asshole.” He sighs and looks away, his eyes suddenly shiny and wet again. “It just really sucks to find out that someone you cared about is such a dick, you know?”

“Yeah,” Phil says quietly. He has the feeling that Dan is about to start crying again, and he’s not quite sure what to do. “Hey, if you want to stay out here for a while longer, take your time. Nobody will bother you. And if you want to talk, you know where I am.”

He makes to stand and leave so that Dan can have some privacy, but warm fingers close around his wrist.

“Wait,” Dan says. He looks slightly embarrassed. “Would you—could you maybe just…stay? Just for a few minutes?”

“Yeah, sure,” Phil says, trying not to think about how Dan’s hand feels against his. He sits down again. “Of course.”

 

The break-up is still a source of conversation the following week when Dan comes in at his usual time with two of his friends, Felix and Marzia. Phil is pretty sure that Felix and Marzia are dating, and they’re kind of an odd couple, in his opinion. Phil has learned that you can tell a lot about a person from the coffee or tea they prefer to drink, and Felix is a chug-eight-cups-of-black-coffee type of guy, while Marzia always asks Phil to draw a sun or a smiley face or a cat in the foam of the single latte that she buys and then sips delicately. But they somehow work well together.

“We don’t have to go, Dan,” Marzia is saying when Phil brings their drinks over to their table. “We’ll stay in with you that night, if you want.”

“No,” Dan says, shaking his head. “For fuck’s sake, Marzia, it’s your birthday party; of _course_ you two have to go. And besides, if _I_ don’t go, then Jeremy will be all smug about how I’m heartbroken over him, or some stupid shit. I’m coming. It’ll be fine.” He grins up at Phil when Phil puts a plate of cookies down. It looks a little forced. “Hi, Phil—want to sit for a minute?”

“Yeah, join us,” Felix says, moving his backpack off the empty chair. “We’re talking about Dan’s dickwad of an ex.”

“How was your weekend?” Phil asks, sitting and giving Dan a quick once-over. He looks tired, but no more tired than the average first-year uni student might look midway through second term.

“My weekend was okay,” Dan says, holding Phil’s gaze and flashing a small smile in his direction.

Out of the corner of his eye, Phil sees Marzia look curiously between the two of them, her expression pensive as she catalogs the interaction.

“My weekend was fine, too, thanks for asking,” Felix says loudly. Phil blinks and looks away from Dan.

“Never mind,” Felix sighs. “Anyway, Dan—bad news. I heard today that Jeremy is brining Sam on Saturday. You know… _Rugby Sam_.”

Dan grimaces and scrubs a hand over his face. “Jesus, that’s going to be brutal. Maybe I shouldn’t go after all. I don’t want to ruin Marzia’s birthday because my own life is a mess.”

“No, no,” Felix insists. There is with a gleam in his eyes. “I didn’t say that you shouldn’t go at all. What you _need,_ though, is a fake date. A beard, if you will. Come out with someone new on your arm, and that’ll show Jeremy that you don’t give a fuck about him and Rugby Sam.”

Dan rolls his eyes. “Yes, Felix, because I have so many guys I could call up and ask to be my fake date to Marzia’s birthday party. PJ is the only person in our friend group I can think of that Jeremy hasn’t met before, and he’s already taken.”

Felix nods, looking discouraged. “Yeah, you’re right; nobody will believe that PJ dumped Sophie to get with you.”

“Hey! Is that supposed to be an insult?” Dan says indignantly. “Because I completely agree, for the record—but I could totally get with PJ if he was single and looking—”

“Guys,” Marzia interrupts, speaking over Felix and Dan’s bickering. “Maybe…maybe Phil could do it.”

Three sets of eyes turn to look at him.

Dan speaks first.

“No,” he says. “No, Phil, I couldn’t ask you to—”

And it’s probably a terrible idea, but Phil had known from the second that Marzia raised the possibility that he’d do it, if it meant helping Dan out.

“It’s okay, Dan,” he hears himself say before Dan can protest any further. “Count me in.”

 

“Are you absolutely _sure_ you’re okay with this?” Dan asks over the intercom.

“For the—” Phil glances at the record he’s been keeping on his phone, “—twenty-seventh time, _yes._ ”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Dan grumbles. “I’m coming down; wait there.”

Phil can’t help the slightly fond huff of laughter that escapes when the intercom cuts off. He hears the slam of a door several stories up, and then the sound of footsteps in the stairwell.

“Wow,” he says, the words falling automatically from his mouth when Dan appears, dressed in a black button-down and very tight skinny jeans. “You look—”

 _Fake date, Phil, fake date,_ he reminds himself.

“—nice,” he finishes lamely.

“Thanks,” Dan says, the tips of his ears going a bit red. “You look…nice, too.”

Phil lives just north of the campus like most of the other grad students, but Dan lives on the south side, which is where Marzia’s friends live too. It’s a short walk, and they set together out in silence. It isn’t awkward, however, which is one of Phil’s favorite things about Dan; that they can just be quiet together. Sometimes when Phil has a break at the coffee shop, he’ll tap Dan on the shoulder and Dan will scoot over, and they’ll sit together and read or scroll through Twitter or do their coursework without talking. Other times, they have heated debates about Pokémon and gaming systems and the best pizza toppings, and Phil just…always really enjoys his mid-morning breaks on Mondays and Wednesdays and Fridays.

“Hey,” Dan says in a low voice when they arrive. He leans in slightly, and Phil can smell his shampoo. “I’ve said it once before and I’ll say it again: we can leave whenever you want. I _swear_ we don’t have to stay if things are weird.”

“No _,_ you’ve said it twenty-eight times, _not_ once, and my answer is still the same. It’ll be _fine,_ ” Phil laughs. Dan still looks dubious, and Phil allows his elbow to bump against Dan’s reassuringly as they ring the doorbell and wait for someone to let them in.

“Seriously, Dan,” he promises. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

 

11\. As it turns out, it’s not fine.

It starts off well enough, though, because it’s not exactly a hardship for Phil to stick close to Dan’s side and chat with him.

“So,” Dan says, idly sipping his drink as they stand by the beer pong table where Marzia is absolutely destroying everyone who is brave enough to challenge her. “You film anything interesting lately?”

Phil pauses with his beer halfway to his mouth. “You remember that I’m a film student?”

Dan’s forehead wrinkles. “Of course—you’re doing a Master’s in post-production, right?”

And it really shouldn’t be that surprising that Dan knows this, but Phil is used to constantly having to explain and re-explain what he is studying to customers at the coffee shop and distant relatives at family parties.

“Yeah,” he nods, something quiet and pleased taking root in his stomach. “Post-production. You know, you’re one of the only people who remembers that. For some reason, all my aunts and uncles can recall the exact day that I peed my pants when I was five, but I have to re-explain my degree every single holiday. I mean…Christmas and New Year’s are only, like, a week apart—how can they forget something like that within the span of _seven days_?”

“I think it’s really cool,” Dan says earnestly. “I wish I was brave enough to study something unique like you.” He bites his lower lip. “Law is fine and all, but to tell the truth, I’ve always wanted to try filming videos myself.”

“Really?” Phil says, trying not to sound overeager. “I’d help you, you know. If you ever wanted help.”

Dan looks at him sideways through his lashes, a small smiling playing at his lips. “That would be really—”

He sucks in a sharp breath and abruptly crowds his way into Phil’s personal space, wrapping one arm around Phil’s waist, leaning his head in close to Phil’s ear, and pressing his hip up against Phil’s side.

“Don’t look now, but Jeremy is here,” he breathes, his lips just barely grazing the shell of Phil’s ear.

Phil’s mind has gone oddly blank.

“Oh,” he says faintly. “Okay. Great.”

Dan looks at him weirdly.

“Oh fuck,” He laughs a few seconds later, his breath ghosting against Phil’s neck and his eyes glowing with triumph. “He saw us together and he looks like he just swallowed an entire lemon. No, wait, actually—make that an entire grapefruit. Holy _shit,_ Phil, this was such a good idea. He’s pissing his pants with shock right now.”

The aura of victory last a whole ten minutes, however, because Dan disappears to use the loo, and when he returns, he is holding three vodka sodas. He downs the first two with alarming speed and hands the third to Phil.

“Fuck him,” he fumes, and Phil doesn’t need to ask who ‘he’ is. “Fuck him and his stupid new haircut and his stupid new rugby boyfriend. Bumped into him by the drinks’ table, and he called me _Howell._ Like we didn’t date for sixth months; like we didn’t—”

He lets out a frustrated sigh and takes the drink back from Phil. “Mind if I have a sip of this?”

“Er—yeah, sure, go ahead,” Phil says. Dan has already downed the whole thing by the time Phil finishes speaking.

 

“Shit,” Dan says, an hour and three additional drinks later. “Shit, dude—like, what color even _are_ your eyes? There’s like—seventy-three colors in there. No, wait.” He hiccups and leans in a little closer, squinting at Phil’s irises. “Seventy-four. It’s definitely seventy-four.”

“My driver’s license says blue,” Phil offers, half-guiding, half-dragging Dan to sit on a lawn chair in the back garden.

“Probably because they couldn’t fit seventy-four colors on one tiny license,” Dan says, completely serious, his head lolling against the back of the chair.

“You’re right. That’s probably why,” Phil says, fighting back a grin.

“I bet your license is really nice,” Dan sighs wistfully. “Because you’re really nice and your face is really nice and I’m just—I’m just some idiot who can’t even keep a boyfriend.”

“No way,” Phil says, taking a seat at the foot of Dan’s lawn chair. “He’s the one who’s an idiot, and a dick, and he’s fucking _blind_ if he can’t see that you’re—that you’re—”

Dan’s hair has gone slightly curly with sweat and the early spring humidity, and Phil is struck by the sudden urge to smooth a stray curl off his forehead. He swallows thickly and shoves his hands in his pockets.

“Phil,” Dan says softly. Then he goes white as a sheet and abruptly turns away.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” he groans.

“Okay,” Phil says, hauling Dan to his feet. “Let’s get you home. Or to a toilet. Whichever one we can find first.”

 

Dan looks very sheepish when he shuffles up to the counter at _Sprinkle of Caffeine_ Monday morning.

“It lives!” Phil proclaims, grinning broadly. “Hey, what’s with the sunglasses? Not sure if that’s such a good look on you, to be honest.”

Dan groans and leans his entire upper body on the counter, burying his head in his arms. Louise looks like she is torn between motherly instinct and mild horror at how close Dan’s hair is to the baked goods.

“Apparently the mythical two-day hangover is actually a very real thing,” Dan mumbles, his voice muffled by the sleeves of his jumper.

“You know, I think we have just the tea to help out with that,” Phil says, already reaching for a mug, when Dan jolts back upright.

“No,” he gasps, before his face loses all its color. “Shit, I shouldn’t have moved that fast. Wow. Okay.” He clings to the countertop for a few white-knuckled seconds. “Anyway, I didn’t—I didn’t come here to buy myself a drink today.”

His eyes flicker over to Louise, who is unabashedly observing their exchange. “Can you maybe just—come over here for a second?”

There’s no line at the counter, so Phil shrugs and shucks his apron, following Dan over to the corner.

“I wanted to buy you a coffee to make up for being such a mess Saturday night,” Dan explains. “But then I started thinking about how then you’d have to _make_ the coffee if I bought it for you, and how that would actually kind of just actually just be a punishment, so...don’t tell Louise, but…I brought you Starbucks.” He subtly pulls a thermos out of his backpack.

“Caramel macchiato?” Phil murmurs quietly, checking over his shoulder to see if anyone is listening.

“Obviously,” Dan grins. He looks ridiculous; wearing joggers and a nice jumper and sunglasses indoors, but it’s kind of endearing.

“Out!” Louise suddenly exclaims, swooping down on them like an angry fruit bat. “Did you just mention the S-word in my coffee shop? Are you _trying_ to run my business to the ground?” She scowls at Dan, poking him in the chest to punctuate her rant.

“I’m going to throw up if you keep poking me,” Dan says honestly.

“Louise, you can’t keep pretending that Starbucks doesn’t exist,” Phil sighs. “It’s 2016. Everyone knows about Starbucks.”

“Out,” Louise insists, pointing at Dan. “And take your contraband with you!”

“No way,” Dan says staunchly. “I bought that for Phil. He can keep it.”

She pokes him again.

“Okay, okay, I’m going,” he grumbles, looking vaguely seasick. “Phil, I’m _really_ sorry about the other night, for the record,” he calls as he makes his way towards the door.

“Don’t apologize,” Phil calls back, unable to keep a smile from his face. “Honestly, I had fun!”

He manages to chug two-thirds of the caramel macchiato before Louise confiscates it.

 

“So that’s…six black coffees and one latte, right?” Felix says on Tuesday afternoon, carefully counting out his change.

Phil stares in horrified admiration as Felix downs two scalding hot coffees in one gulp apiece. “How can your body even absorb that much caffeine?”

“It’s a secret,” Felix says airily, somehow managing to pick up all five of the remaining drinks at once.

He turns to leave. Then he sighs, turns back around, and unloads the drinks back onto the counter.

“Okay,” he says. “You can’t tell Dan that I’m telling you this—he doesn’t want to bother you again after he got smashed and puked on your shoes last Saturday night—but he needs a date to the spring formal this weekend. We bumped into Jeremy on campus this morning, and he was going on about how Dan probably wouldn’t have a date, and how he must’ve paid you to show up at the party Saturday night—”

“I really didn’t mind Saturday night,” Phil interjects. “I don’t know why everyone thinks I minded, honestly. It was fun, up until the puking.”

“Yeah, I _bet_ you didn’t mind Saturday night,” Felix mutters to himself.

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Felix says innocently, shaking his head and reclaiming his drinks. “Pick him up at 9 on Friday!”

 

If Phil had thought Dan looked nice in jeans and a black button-down, he _really_ hadn’t adequately prepared himself for how Dan would look in a suit at the spring formal.

“Do I have something in my teeth?” Dan asks, self-consciously holding a hand over the lower half of his face as he finishes telling a story.

Phil realizes he’d been staring. “No,” he says, hastily refocusing his eyes away from Dan’s face. Of course, his gaze happens to land on Jeremy and Sam. Jeremy is standing on the other side of the room with his arms crossed over his muscular chest, glaring over at Phil and Dan. Sam just looks bored.

Dan follows Phil’s gaze, and he rolls his eyes when Jeremy’s scowl intensifies in their direction.

“Hey,” He grins. “You wanna dance?”

 

14\. “You know,” Dan shouts into his ear over the music. “Felix doesn’t have good ideas very often, but this was a _really_ good one!”

Coincidentally, Jeremy and Sam have _also_ made their way over to the dance floor. They don’t look like they’re having much fun—Jeremy is glaring at Dan, and Sam is alternately glaring at Jeremy and scrolling through his phone.

“Yeah,” Phil shouts back. “The plan worked really well—Jeremy is definitely jealous.”

Dan stops dancing and shakes his head. “That’s not what I—” He takes a deep breath. “Oh, fuck it,” he says, just as the song ends, and then—somewhere in those weird couple of seconds in between songs, when everything feels too quiet and too loud all at once—they are kissing.

And Phil had thought, over the course of the past several months, that he’d been doing a pretty good job of getting to know Dan Howell, because he knows exactly how Dan likes his coffee, and he knows that Dan has never played _The Sims_ before, and he knows that Dan hates moths, and that he cries over anime and has the worst handwriting on the entire planet.

But as it turns out, he hadn’t known anything at _all_ until he also knows this: what Dan’s long fingers feel like as they clutch at the lapels of Phil’s blazer. The tiny sound he makes when Phil’s teeth scrape lightly against his bottom lip. The fact that Phil can actually _feel_ one of Dan’s dimples when he tilts his head slightly to crush their mouths further together.

“Dan,” a sharp voice says right by Phil’s ear. Then Phil is being forced away from Dan as Jeremy physically insinuates himself in between the two of them.

“I need to talk to you,” Jeremy says through gritted teeth, his eyes as stony as flint.

Dan opens his mouth and glances at Phil. Then, unexpectedly, he smiles.

“You know what? Sure, Jeremy. Let’s talk,” he says companionably, looping his arm through Jeremy’s and leading him a few feet away.

Phil watches numbly as Dan meets Jeremy’s gaze, nodding and smiling along to whatever Jeremy is saying. Maybe this had been Dan’s hope all along; that he could make Jeremy jealous enough for the two of them to get back together.

And Phil _knows_ that he should feel happy for Dan, that Dan appears to be getting what he’d hoped for. But he just feels vaguely ill instead.

“...want to meet for dinner this Wednesday?” Phil hears Jeremy ask.

“Okay, sure!” Dan says cheerfully, and Phil has to turn away and leave, because he doesn’t want to listen to this anymore.

He wishes he could be as unaffected as Sam, who nods at him as he passes and then moves on to the next level of Angry Birds on his phone.

 

He doesn’t see Dan again until Wednesday morning.

He calls in sick to work on Monday morning and ignores all of Dan’s ‘ _where did you disappear to the other night?’_ texts, which gradually turn from concerned to angry to stonily silent.

“You’ve got some nerve showing your face here,” Dan snaps furiously when he comes up to the counter at _Sprinkle of Glitter_ after class _._ He slams his backpack down so hard that Phil is momentarily worried the donut display case will shatter.

“Uh...I work here,” Phil says. “I kind of _have_ to show my face here.”

Dan deflates a little at that. “Yeah, well,” he glares. “You’ve still got some nerve.” He huffs out a long breath, not looking at Phil. “You know, if you weren’t into it when I kissed you, you could’ve just _said_ something instead of running away and avoiding me for four days.”

Phil doesn’t understand what Dan is trying to say, and he can’t quite hold in a childish retort. “Yeah, well...if you’re upset about it, I’m sure _Jeremy_ will comfort you on your date tonight.”

Dan lets out an aggravated sigh. “What the hell are you even talking about? I’m not going on a date with Jeremy tonight or any other night.”

“But I heard him ask you! At the formal,” Phil blurts out. “And you said yes!”

Dan blinks at him three times. And then he bursts out laughing. And he laughs so hard that Phil is once again slightly concerned for the donut display case’s safety.

“Phil,” he says when he finally gets a hold of himself, wiping tears from his eyes and still wheezing slightly. “ _Phil._ You should’ve stuck around a little longer during that conversation, because you missed the part where Jeremy asked me what time I wanted to meet him, and I told him ‘at go-fuck-yourself o’clock.’ Seriously—you _actually_ thought I wanted to get back together that asshat?”

“...Maybe,” Phil mumbles.

“Christ, Phil. I went along with Felix’s plan because I wanted to stick it to Jeremy, sure. But mostly I just...I just wanted an excuse to hang out with you.” He shrugs, looking a little shy, and Phil’s heart is suddenly doing hopeful cartwheels somewhere in the region of his stomach. “To tell the truth, I told Jeremy that I already had a date scheduled for tonight when he wouldn’t stop bugging me. And I’d get it if you don’t want to be my rebound, or whatever—”

“I know a place,” Phil interjects. He swallows around the nervous lump that has suddenly arisen in his throat. “We could get a coffee there tonight.”

There is a terrifying instant where Dan doesn’t react. But then his face splits into a mile-wide grin. “You’re paying,” he says. “To make up for abandoning me to Jeremy and Sam at the formal.”

“Done,” Phil says. He feels his mouth break out into an answering smile.

Dan carefully looks around and then he leans over the counter. “Just to clarify,” he whispers, his mouth distracting close. “This place that you’re talking about is Starbucks, right?”

Phil glances around too, to make sure that Louise isn’t nearby. “Obviously,” he grins.

And if he happens to lean in and kiss Dan as a cover-up for their Starbucks plans when Louise immediately pops her head out of the backroom, on high alert, well...what Louise doesn’t know won’t hurt her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 15\. things you said with too many miles between us
> 
>  
> 
> (Or, the one with all the touching.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for an anon who requested number 15. (things you said with too many miles between us)  
> This is a more metaphorical take on that prompt. You could even call it...metaphysical, perhaps (sorry i think i'm funny i'll stop)

The waitress only brings two checks to their table.

“Seriously,” Dan huffs when she is out of hearing range, passing Martyn his bill and skimming over the one that has been delivered for his and Phil’s food. “Does nobody understand what ‘separate checks’ means?”

Phil leans over his shoulder to read their bill. “It _is_ a bit odd,” he hums thoughtfully, his breath tickling Dan’s neck. “This is the third restaurant this has happened at this year.”

Martyn snorts into his tiramisu. “Yes, very odd,” he nods knowingly.

Dan narrows his eyes at him from across the table and waits until Phil has gotten up to go the loo before leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Alright,” he says. “Spill it. You know something.”

Martyn shrugs innocently, and begins a tally on his fingers. “I know a lot of things. This place has great tiramisu but crappy tea, for one. Emus and kangaroos are incapable of walking backwards, for another—learned that one in Australia. The reason that restaurant staff always bring you and Phil a combined check is because you touch each other so much that they can’t help but assume you two are together. It’s actually impossible to hum with your nose plugged—”

“Wait, _what?”_

“I know, right? Try it,” Martyn encourages. “It’s physically impossible without any airflow.” He plugs his nose and makes several frankly disconcerting facial expressions that Dan supposes must be an attempt to hum.

Dan generally thinks that Phil and Martyn are pretty different people, shared genetics aside. This is not one of those times.

“Really, Martyn?” He says flatly.

Martyn sighs and screws up his face. “Oh, come on, Dan—are you really going to make me talk about it? The two of you are all over each other, all the time. It’s not even that weird coming from Phil—he’s a friendly guy; it’s not odd that he touches you. But I don’t think you’ve ever done more than shake my hand in the…what, seven years that we’ve known each other now? And you’re practically sitting on his lap over there.”

“It’s a small table!” Dan gapes, full of righteous indignation. “I can either touch his ankle or yours, and—”

“Sure, whatever, mate,” Martyn shudders. “I _really_ don’t need any of the details of what you and my little brother are doing to each other under this table.”

“Nothing!” Dan squawks so loudly that several people turn to stare. “We’re just sitting!”

“Hey, man, you asked me why the waitress brought you a combined check, and I’m telling you the answer,” Martyn shrugs, holding up both of his hands. His forehead wrinkles. “You genuinely haven’t noticed? All the touching, I mean?”

“There’s nothing _to_ notice,” Dan resists stubbornly. “We don’t touch each other that much. Hardly ever, in fact.”

Phil chooses this moment to reappear. “Hey,” he says brightly. “Everything okay here?” He unconsciously trails his fingers across Dan’s shoulder as he steps around the Dan’s chair to slide into his own seat, and Martyn’s smile goes very smug from across the table.

“Yeah,” Martyn smirks. “Everything’s good here. Right, Dan?”

Dan swallows thickly around the sudden anxiety that has arisen in his throat.

 

* * *

 

 

The thing is, now that Martyn has made Dan start thinking about it, he _can’t stop._

After they bid Martyn farewell and descend into the Tube station, Phil easily loops his fingers in Dan’s jacket pocket as they fight to keep from being swept away in the throng of rush hour traffic. When Dan grips one of the overhead straps to keep his balance as they stand in the cramped, swaying train car, Phil grabs onto the same one, and their hands continuously brush against each other until Dan spots an open seat and practically dives for it so he that doesn’t have to keep feeling the warmth of Phil’s fingers against his own.

When they stop at the grocery store on the walk back to their flat, Phil leans completely into Dan’s physical space to reach the strawberry yogurts as they stand in the dairy aisle, and as they make their way home in the chilly November air, Phil shivers and slips an arm through Dan’s, pressing his side against the puffy fabric of Dan’s coat to ward off the sharpness of the evening.

Dan is appalled. And confused.

How hadn’t he _noticed_ this before?

 

* * *

 

 

The only thing to it, Dan decides as he lies in bed that night, is to stop touching Phil, cold turkey.

After all, this is clearly just some weird, insane habit that they’ve subconsciously cultivated after years and years of living together and being best friends. Phil is the one person he sees practically every single day, and logically, the touching is just…a sign of how comfortable they’ve become around each other. It’s obviously a signal that their friendship is very healthy, and there’s nothing more to it.

_Absolutely nothing._

And anyway, it shouldn’t really be that big of a deal. Like Martyn had pointed out, Dan isn’t a touchy-feely person by nature, so if he doesn’t touch Phil, then _Phil_ won’t touch _him_ , and Dan can bleach his brain of the ordeal, and they can finally, _finally_ start getting separate checks at restaurants.  Simple as that.

 

* * *

 

 

Except.

 

* * *

 

 

_Except,_ after it’s been one week, two days, and approximately ten hours since he’s last touched Phil, Dan feels like he is going to go insane.

It’s like—it’s like falling asleep with the windows open in October, right when it’s finally gotten cool enough at night to need two blankets and socks in bed, and suddenly rolling over and realizing that it’s too quiet outside; that something about the night sounds _wrong_ without the crickets and the gentle summer breeze and the happy, muted chatter of drunk people in the park, even though he’d never actually stopped and paid any attention at all to those noises when it was still summer.

Dan doesn’t bump his knee against Phil’s while they eat breakfast and scroll through the news on their phones every morning anymore. He doesn’t tuck his feet under Phil’s blanket when they lounge next to one another in their sofa creases. When Phil starts laughing at a Vine on his phone, Dan doesn’t lean over and tuck his chin onto Phil’s shoulder to catch the video’s next loop.

When he dozes off during a _Parks and Rec_ marathon _,_ he doesn’t allow his head to flop onto Phil’s shoulder, even though it means awakening to a miserably stiff neck and the song ‘Bye, Bye, Lil Sebastian’ stuck in his head for three days straight.  

He has to physically clench his hands into fists on fourteen separate occasions to keep from touching Phil on the arm to punctuate a story or a joke. When they are editing a video together and Phil’s glasses are askew, Dan doesn’t reach over and push them gently up the bridge of his nose to right them like he normally would.

And it _sucks.  
_

 

* * *

 

 

At first, Phil doesn’t seem to notice that anything is different.

But by the third or fourth day, he blinks slowly a few times at points in conversation when Dan would normally be poking him or shaking his arm. By the end of the first week, he starts carefully regarding Dan with narrowed eyes from behind his laptop when he thinks Dan isn’t looking.

By the end of the second week, Phil is definitely suspicious.

“Hey,” he says one afternoon when they are sitting at their favorite table in their favorite Starbucks. “Does my hair look okay?” It looks absolutely _fine,_ but as Dan is watching, Phil runs a hand through his fringe carelessly, completely messing it up.

“Uh,” Dan says, because they have a pact seven years in the running that they will always tell each other when each other’s fringe looks stupid. He swallows, trying not to notice how soft the unruly strands of Phil’s hair look.

“Yeah,” he says, and his voice comes out like gravel. “You have a little—if you just pat it down there—”

“Oh,” Phil remarks cheerfully, and then he looks at Dan with an expectant expression.

Dan doesn’t move.

Phil’s smile falls a bit. “Will you fix it for me?” He ventures, carefully watching Dan’s face.

“I can’t.” Dan shakes his head, his voice very quiet. “Sorry, I—I have coffee on my hands. They’re sticky,” he lies, his stomach tight.

“Oh,” Phil says, his voice cooler the frosted glass of the nearby window. “You don’t have to explain. I understand perfectly.”

Shit.

 

* * *

 

 

Dan is expecting some sort of confrontation on the matter, which is why he’s surprised when three days pass and none is forthcoming.

And by _surprised,_ he actually means that he’s a _complete nervous wreck_.

He lies in bed and stares at the same crack in the ceiling for three nights in a row, dreading the inevitable question that Phil is going to ask him; wondering what on earth he’s going to say—

And then—when Phil waltzes into the kitchen on the fourth morning with an unusually bright expression on his face, Dan knows that his paranoia hasn’t been unfounded.

“Good morning,” he sing-songs as Dan hunches protectively over his cereal with blurry, heavy eyelids.

“Hi,” Dan mumbles, wondering what terrible things he must have done in a past life to deserve this situation.

Phil turns on the coffee pot and pours himself a bowl of cereal—his own cereal, for once, not Dan’s—and then he sits down at the table with a pleasant expression and _holy shit_ , this is it; Dan is actually going to die; Phil is going to ask him about the touching and he’s going to burst into flames on the spot, and he’s waiting for it; he’s just waiting for it—

And Phil—Phil doesn’t say anything at all.

Instead, he just smiles into his cereal, and then he very deliberately brushes his left foot against Dan’s right foot under the table and just. Gently _leaves_ it there. If Dan concentrates, he can feel each of Phil’s toes inside of his pink-and-blue-striped sock against his own bare foot, including the slight crookedness of Phil’s big toe from when he’d tripped on the bleachers at one of Martyn’s football matches in primary school and broken his toe.

“—want to help me film that today?” Phil is asking.

Dan’s mind has gone utterly blank. “Uh, sure,” he stammers. He’s suddenly aware of the fact that he’s blushing; the tips of his ears hot with some emotion he can’t quite label.

“Great,” Phil says happily, and he rubs his foot against Dan’s a few times.

Dan drops his spoon and completely misses his mouthful of cereal.

“You okay?” Phil asks, completely casual.

And Dan should—Dan should pull his foot away. He _knows_ this. He’s gone more than two weeks without touching Phil, and if he allows himself to start again—

But it’s a chilly morning, and Dan’s bare feet are cold, so…surely there’s nothing wrong with letting Phil keep them warm, right? It’s all for the sake of good circulation, of course. Cardiovascular health, and all that.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m okay.” He has the sudden sensation of regaining a limb that had been missing.

He doesn’t move his foot away, and Phil smiles for the entire rest of breakfast.

 

* * *

 

 

After that, it just keeps _happening._

When they sit down over the weekend to marathon the Star Wars prequels, Phil only brings one blanket over to the couch instead of their usual separate throws, so that they basically _have_ to sink towards the middle of the couch together, legs tangled and hips and shoulders pressed together for warmth.

The weekend after _that,_ they meet up with Louise for drinks.

“—and then Dan cried about the padawans dying,” Phil recounts fondly, reaching over to pat Dan on the knee.

“The pada- _whats_?” Louise echoes, looking lost.

“Hey!” Dan defends. “It was _sad,_ okay? Anakin just…he just _killed_ them, in cold blood.” He tries not to focus on the fact that Phil’s hand has fallen still on top of his knee, the heat of his fingers like a brand, even through the heavy denim of Dan’s jeans.

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Louise asks blankly.

“ _Bad,”_ he and Phil chorus in unison.

“Honestly, Louise, haven’t you been listening as we’ve been explaining the plot?” Dan groans.

“No,” Louise says honestly, shaking her head. “Not in the slightest.”

“Okay,” Dan says cheerfully. He’s pleasantly tipsy. “Back to the beginning, then! So, there’s this thing called the Force, right?”

Louise downs the rest of her drink in one go. “Well, I think it’s time I get going,” she says loudly. “Promised the babysitter I’d be back by 10.”

“We should probably go too, Dan,” Phil admits, motioning towards the window with his head. “It’s started snowing.”

He lifts his hand off Dan’s knee to give Louise a hug, and Dan tries to think about how bereft he feels without it there.

“Ugh,” Dan sighs, pulling the zipper of his jacket as high as it can go as he and Phil step outside. “I don’t think I’m ready for snow and cold yet.”

Phil shivers, his breath visible in the dark, cold air that surrounds them. “Me either,” he says. “Let’s walk fast.”

The sky has taken on that strange purplish-pink hue that it only gets during snowfall, and the streets are quiet as they bow their heads against the flurries and make their way towards their flat. Dan rubs his hands together as he walks, wishing he’d been smart enough to tuck a pair of gloves into his jacket pocket like Phil had.

Phil, as always, seems to know exactly what Dan needs before Dan is even aware of it himself. He pulls off his right glove and hands it to Dan.

“We can share,” he says. Dan watches in fascination as a snowflake lands on Phil’s cheek and immediately melts away.

Dan blinks, realizing that he is staring. “But one of your hands will be cold, then,” he protests.

“No, it won’t,” Phil grins, reaching out and intertwining his now-bare right hand with Dan’s bare left hand. 

“Oh,” Dan exhales softly. Phil’s thumb absentmindedly rubs against his thumb as they walk, and he watches through his peripheral vision as another snowflake melts on the bridge of Phil’s nose.

He suddenly feels much warmer.

 

* * *

 

 

Three days later, Phil falls asleep on his shoulder in the back of a cab, and something lurches in the pit of Dan’s stomach and he _knows._

It’s no different from the hundreds of other times that the two of them have fallen asleep with their limbs and bodies intertwined to some varying extent—going on a worldwide tour will do that to you, because they’ve both learned from experience that sleeping on someone else’s shoulder is a lot more comfortable than sleeping against the hard, vibrating glass of a car or bus window.

And really, this one evening ride home from the train station shouldn’t stand out in Dan’s mind in any way, but when a stray headlight illuminates Phil’s features, soft and relaxed and trusting—when they go over a bump and Phil sighs and turns his face into Dan’s neck, his hair brushing against the collar of Dan’s jacket—

Dan just _knows_ , all of a sudden, why Martyn calling attention to the two of them touching has made him so uncomfortable all this time; why Phil’s sudden increase in physical contact has left him feeling vulnerable and confused these past few weeks.

Because if Dan is really, truly honest with himself…he _likes_ that he and Phil touch each other a lot. He likes that he is the only person that Phil is so physically attuned to. He likes that he has finally found someone that he doesn’t have to feel guarded or reserved around; someone who has pushed past his walls and aloofness and accepted him for who he is.

 _You know me,_ he thinks, as he studies the dark lines of Phil’s eyelashes; the familiar slope of his forehead, the fullness of his mouth. _And I know you._

And maybe...worst of all, _maybe_ , on some level, he wants Phil to touch him in ways that aren’t strictly platonic.

  _Fuck.  
_

He shakes Phil awake.

“I need some fresh air,” he blurts out, even as Phil blinks grumpily.  
“I’m going to walk home.”

Then he hops out of the cab at the next stoplight, ignoring Phil’s bewildered expression and the cab driver’s muffled cursing about ‘idiots opening the door in the middle of traffic.’

 

* * *

 

 

The next morning, Phil comes up behind him when he is washing his breakfast dishes at the sink and he wraps his arms around Dan’s waist in a sleepy embrace. He presses his face into the base of Dan’s neck and just breathes for a long minute—and it’s cold outside but the sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window is bright and warm, and Dan can feel it every time that Phil’s chest rhythmically rises and falls, and everything about the moment is so perfect and achingly _right_ that Dan is actually scared by the intensity of it.

“Phil,” he says.

“Mmm,” Phil hums, his lips skimming against the collar of Dan’s t-shirt.

Dan braces his hands against the sink and wills himself to say what needs to be said.

“I don’t think we should—I think it would be best if we just—”

Phil sighs and drops his arms, taking a step backwards. Dan doesn’t turn around to face him, afraid of losing his nerve.

“If we just _what_?” Phil says, voice acrimonious with disappointment.

“We can still—whatever this thing is—we can still go back to how it was before,” Dan suggests, because it’s one thing for him and Phil to squish together on the Tube or in a crowded restaurant, but it’s another thing entirely for Phil to intertwine their fingers in the snow and hold him in the kitchen in the early morning sunlight.

“You haven’t heard a single thing I’ve been saying,” Phil mutters, seemingly half to himself.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Phil’s voice is quiet. “Maybe I don’t want to go back to how things were before, Dan.”

When Dan turns around a second later, he is already gone.

 

* * *

 

 

So...Dan had thought it was pretty shitty when he wasn’t touching Phil, but now _Phil_ isn’t touching _him_ anymore and it’s worse; it’s _so much worse.  
_

Because the thing is, he and Phil communicate in fundamentally different ways. Dan is, and has always been, a talker. His teachers couldn’t get him to shut up in primary school, and he used to love having tea with his gran’s friends, because they would always pinch his cheeks and let him prattle on for as long as he wanted. He makes a living off of rambling on-camera, for fuck’s sake.

Phil, on the other hand, speaks in gestures. He scoots closer to Dan in interviews when he senses that Dan is getting nervous. He buys bouquets of wildflowers for no reason, other than that he wants to brighten up their lounge. When Dan plays the piano, he comes and stands in the doorway to listen, his expression attentive and his body language rapt, like Dan’s music is something worth listening to.

Dan feels Phil’s current aversion like a physical wound.

It’s _there,_ festering under the surface, in the way that _nothing_ has changed between them and _everything_ has changed between them.

They still joke around and play video games together and have way too many inside jokes, but Phil sits firmly on his own cushion on the sofa when they watch anime. He keeps his long legs to himself at the kitchen table. He reminds Dan to bring a pair of gloves when they leave the flat to go see a movie.

Dan lasts two weeks, and then, for once in his life, Phil _doesn’t_ obnoxiously lean over him in the dairy aisle at the grocery store to check the yogurts for the best expiration date, and it’s such a small thing, but Dan can’t breathe at the sudden pain in his chest, because _he’d done this;_ he’d broken things between them without ever meaning to, and now he’s lost a part of Phil that he will probably never get back.

Phil, whose quiet affection had crept up on him like a tsunami over the past seven years. Phil, who sleeps with his mouth open and has ticklish feet and hates being touched on the elbow. Phil, who is late-night board games and worldwide tours and YouTube videos and _home._

Phil, who—

Phil, who talks through gestures.

Dan freezes with his hand on a package of strawberry yogurt, several fragments of memory abruptly falling together.

_“You haven’t heard a single thing I’ve been saying—”_

Inky skies and snowy winds and a single pair of gloves for two people—

Sun-warmed breakfasts in the kitchen; white light and Phil’s knee against his under the table, solid and real, and the unshakeable knowledge that _this is enough; I could do this every morning for the rest of my life and it would be enough—_

_“Maybe I don’t want to go back to how things were before, Dan.”_

_You know me, and I know you._

“Oh,” Dan exhales like he’s been punched in the stomach. “Phil,” he says abruptly. The words taste like a revelation. “You’ve been—all the touching; that _meant_ something, didn’t it?”

Phil puts down the milk carton that he’d been inspecting. He rolls his eyes and ticks his left eyebrow upward. “No, Dan, I _always_ show up in my friends’ kitchens in the morning for a little cuddle. Totally normal; no underlying subtextual message there. I’m headed over to PJ’s in a bit, actually—”

“Phil,” Dan breathes, dropping the yogurt back into the cooler and stepping closer. Phil’s eyes widen slightly. “Phil, I didn’t—look, you _know_ I’m better at words than—than this.” He says, gesturing between the two of them. “I didn’t know, but I _do_ know now; I _know,_ and I—”

“Stop talking,” Phil says.

Dan’s heart drops. “I want to fix this—”

“No, really,” Phil laughs, taking one final step to close the distance between them. “Stop talking so I can kiss you.”

“Oh,” Dan says. “Well, okay, then,” he shrugs, quickly moving out of the way of an impatient mother and her shopping cart. “Works for me.”

 

* * *

 

 

The next time they meet up with Martyn for dinner, Dan very deliberately asks the waiter to combine his and Phil’s checks. Martyn blinks and stares between the two of them, before his eyes widen suddenly and his mouth drops open like a startled fish.

“You two? _Are together?_ ” He gapes, apparently reduced to two-word sentences.

“Yep,” Phil says cheerfully, leaning across the table to kiss Dan.

“Oh god, I don’t need proof,” Martyn shudders. He’s smiling broadly, though. “Howell, you’re paying for my meal, too. You owe me.”

Phil laces his fingers through Dan’s under the table.

“Yeah,” Dan agrees. “I guess I do.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You guys...I think I almost...wrote a real life drabble. It's only 1300 words!! This is a first, normally I'm incapable of writing anything concise :)))

5\. things you didn't say at all

Here’s the thing: there’s really nothing _that_ significant about the BONCAS.

Sure, it’s an awesome opportunity to celebrate the British internet community, and as always, Dan is touched and awed and utterly taken aback by the amount of support he and Phil receive from their _own_ little community of viewers and fans at these kinds of events.

(Plus, it’s not like he’s going to complain about having a legitimate reason to own a sparkly silver suit.)

But at the end of his life, when he’s eighty-five years old and sitting in a rocking chair and watching his grandkids play in the back garden (still dressed in black from head-to-toe in this hypothetical scenario, of course)—at the end of it all, he’s not going to be counting his BONCAS or YouTube Play Buttons or subscriber counts.

Instead, his life will be measured out by feelings like this one: standing on stage next to Phil; chest fairly bursting with pride; watching the way that Phil’s grin almost splits his face in two when he accepts his award for British Creator of the Year. The swoop of his stomach when Phil says the words: _I’ve spent the majority of 2016 with another person…I think it’s only fair that he comes up and shares this award with me._ The instant when Phil catches his eye from across the podium and everything else fades away—the thunderous roar of the crowd, the words Phil is saying—

And maybe it’s award-induced nostalgia, but for an instant, under the stage lights and amidst the applause, Phil is transformed. Not into who he was when they’d first met (although Dan still perfectly remembers Phil with long hair and a ridiculous Northern accent) but into who he will one day _become_. Dan can see it with perfect clarity in his mind’s eye; how the crow’s feet by Phil’s eyes will eventually deepen into laugh lines. The quiff that will inevitably replace the fringe. The way Phil’s tall, straight stature will someday begin to gracefully bend under the weight of years and years of memories.

 _I don’t know what’s left out there to be conquered still,_ Dan thinks, coming back to cheers of the crowd. _But I hope that whatever it is, we take it on together._

 

* * *

 

He’s thought about it before; who Phil will be in the future.

He’s thought about other things, too—what it would be like to wake up next to Phil in the morning; their two bodies a single tangle of sun-warmed skin and soft, quiet eyes. What it would be like to just lean in and kiss Phil the next time he does that stupid thing where he sticks his tongue out when he laughs. How it would feel to put a ring on his left hand and stand in front of both of their families and promise to spend the rest of his life trying to tolerate Phil’s cereal-stealing habits and obsessive need for punctuality.

So, yeah. In the grand scheme of things, the BONCAS aren’t significant. What _is_ significant, Dan supposes, is that somewhere along the way, _his_ hypothetical grandkids playing the back garden became _his and Phil’s_ hypothetical grandkids playing in the back garden.

 

* * *

 

The truth is, though, that there’s been this sense of inevitability between the two of them, for as long as Dan can remember.

It began when he was eighteen, and all of a sudden, it became a simple matter of fact: of _course_ he and Phil were going to Skype that night. Of _course_ he was going to spend all of his savings on train tickets to go up to Manchester on the weekends.

Then: of course they would be flatmates after Dan left uni. Of course they’d move to London to try and get a radio show at the BBC. Of course they’d start a gaming channel and write a book and go on tour and then write _another_ book.

Of course they’d spend the rest of their lives together.

It’s always felt inevitable, but they’ve never actually spoken about it.

“Dan,” Dan’s mum used to always firmly say when he was learning to swim; clinging to her hand on the beach and refusing to let go. “Either you jump in and learn to swim, or you stay on land and keep being afraid of the water. It’s your choice. But none of this one-toe-in-the-water nonsense. You’re either in the water or you’re not.”

Dan is fully aware that he and Phil have been half-submerged in some sort of no man’s land for the past seven years. It’s a safe place to be. After all, they’re too busy to have a relationship. It’s too risky to jeopardize their business partnership with feelings. Their friendship is already everything; why change the status quo?

All valid arguments, but Dan still remembers what life was like _before_ Phil; how huge and colorless and purposeless the world had felt—and sometimes the light catches just so on Phil’s hair, and sometimes Phil publicly agrees that the very fabric of the universe would split in two if their lives weren’t intertwined, and Dan really wants to leave no man’s land behind and run headlong into the unknown.

 

* * *

 

“Hey,” he says that night, leaning against the doorframe of Phil’s bedroom and loosening his bowtie. Phil is struggling to brush infinite quantities of glitter off his bedspread. The stuff is all over the flat, and Dan can’t even tell whose outfit it’s coming from anymore.

“Hi,” Phil says, looking up with a slow smile; the one that does things to the pit of Dan’s stomach.

Dan flops onto the left side of bed, sending up a cloud of glitter.

“Thanks for that,” Phil says drily. He lays down next to Dan, albeit with a bit more tranquility. “Very helpful.”

“You know me; I live to serve,” Dan says, grinning across the pillows. Phil’s eyes soften slightly. He has three specks of glitter on his right cheek, and they sparkle in the low light flooding in from the hallway.

“Hey, Phil,” Dan continues after a moment of silence. “Do you ever think about what we’re going to do next? I mean, we’ve kind of done it all. Y’know—books, tours, YouTube channels. You won the biggest award of the night tonight. I mean...what’s left?”

He thoughtfully considers the ceiling, and almost startles and flails right off the bed when Phil’s fingers suddenly brush against his.

“Dan,” Phil says softly. “When I won that award tonight, you want to know the first thing I thought of?”

Some part of Dan already knows, but another, larger part is afraid to hope.

“What?” He asks.

Phil’s fingers close fully around Dan’s.

“You,” he says.

That’s it—he doesn’t need to offer any other explanation. Dan doesn’t know which one of them moves first, but suddenly they are kissing.

And Dan had built this moment up in his head for years and years, and there’s no way that it should actually be as good as his daydreams, but somehow it _is._ It isn’t earth-shattering or mind-numbing or any of the other textbook adjective—their teeth bump together at one point, and it takes a minute to find the right angle—but Phil’s lips taste like a promise of more to come, and his hands already know exactly where to fit themselves on Dan’s waist. And the two of them have learned to fit perfectly into each others’ lives over the past seven years, so Dan has full confidence that they’ll figure this newest thing out too.

 

* * *

  

(Somewhere long in the past, a seven-year-old boy stands on the southwestern coast of England with his mum, looking down at the water. His fingers shake slightly when he lets go of her hand, but he squares his shoulders all the same, takes a deep breath, and jumps in all the way in.)


End file.
